In popular American cultural constructions, “Daoists” (or “Tao-ists” in keeping with
their own self-representations) love the Tao and go with the flow of cosmic energy.
They tend to conceptualize the Tao in many different ways, most often according to
views derived from Perennial Philosophy and New Age hybrid spirituality. They tend
to base their understanding of “Daoism” on outdated or popular publications, including
“translations” of the Daode jing 道德經 (Tao-te-ching) with little or no connection
to the original Chinese text (e.g., by Ursula LeGuin, Stephen Mitchell, etc.). As
disenfranchised and disillusioned Protestant Christians, they tend to reject most
of the defining characteristics of the religious tradition which is Daoism: community,
culture, language, lineage, place, ritual, scripture, and so forth. Here adherence
involves no commitments or responsibilities. Such self-identified “Daoists” reject
the historical and cultural realities of Daoism as a Chinese religious tradition;
they also deny and often dismiss the voices and lives of ordained and lineage-based
Daoists in determining the accuracy of their representations. They are more interested
in participating in the popular Western colonization of Daoism than developing a
deep and accurate understanding of the tradition. Few of these popularizers have
had any actual contact with tradition-based Daoists and Daoist communities. If they
have, they use such “exotic” and “mysterious” meetings to increase their legitimacy
and justify their claims about “being a Daoist.” Their primary mode of operation
is appropriation, exploitation, disconnection and distortion. The popular construction
of being a Daoist is rooted in colonialist, missionary and Orientalist legacies.
Here one may draw a parallel between Zen Buddhism in the 1960s and 1970s and Daoism
today. As the popular bumper-sticker says, “That was Zen; This is Tao.” “Daoism”
in the contemporary popular imagination satisfies Western desires for “trans-religious
spirituality” in the same way that earlier popular constructions of “Zen” did. “Daoism”
becomes anything for anyone. Such self-identified “Daoists” are best understood as
members of a new religious movement known as Popular Western Taoism, a new American
form of hybrid spirituality which has little to no connection with the Daoist religious
tradition.
In contrast to the actual Daoist religious tradition, the following groups are closer
to popular Western constructions of “Daoism”: Beliefless Buddhism, Healing Tao, Krishnamurti
Foundation, Osho International Society, Perennial Philosophy, Theosophical Society,
Unitarian Universalist Church, Vedanta Society, and so forth.
Further Reading: Daoism: A Short Introduction/James Miller; Daoism and Chinese Culture/Livia
Kohn; Daoism Handbook/Livia Kohn (ed.); Daoist Identity/Livia Kohn and Harold Roth
(eds.); Daoism in China/Wang Yi’e; Taoism: The Enduring Tradition/Russell Kirkland;
“The Dao of America”/Elijah Siegler; “The Taoism of China and the Taoism of the Western
Imagination”/Russell Kirkland; “Tracing the Contours of Daoism in North America”/Louis
Komjathy.
See also Adherent, American Daoism, Americanization, Dao, Daoist (Historical), Daoist
(Normative), Popular Western Taoism, Sympathizer and the entries on Daoism.
